Hernández-Navarro, L. orcid.org/0000-0002-7272-7597, Asker, M. orcid.org/0009-0003-5548-5535, Rucklidge, A.M. orcid.org/0000-0003-2985-0976 et al. (1 more author) (2023) Coupled environmental and demographic fluctuations shape the evolution of cooperative antimicrobial resistance. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 20 (208). 20230393. ISSN 1742-5689
Abstract
There is a pressing need to better understand how microbial populations respond to antimicrobial drugs, and to find mechanisms to possibly eradicate antimicrobial-resistant cells. The inactivation of antimicrobials by resistant microbes can often be viewed as a cooperative behaviour leading to the coexistence of resistant and sensitive cells in large populations and static environments. This picture is, however, greatly altered by the fluctuations arising in volatile environments, in which microbial communities commonly evolve. Here, we study the eco-evolutionary dynamics of a population consisting of an antimicrobial-resistant strain and microbes sensitive to antimicrobial drugs in a time-fluctuating environment, modelled by a carrying capacity randomly switching between states of abundance and scarcity. We assume that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a shared public good when the number of resistant cells exceeds a certain threshold. Eco-evolutionary dynamics is thus characterised by demographic noise (birth and death events) coupled to environmental fluctuations which can cause population bottlenecks. By combining analytical and computational means, we determine the environmental conditions for the long-lived coexistence and fixation of both strains, and characterise a fluctuation-driven AMR eradication mechanism, where resistant microbes experience bottlenecks leading to extinction. We also discuss the possible applications of our findings to laboratory-controlled experiments.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | cooperation; fluctuations; antimicrobial resistance; coexistence; eco-evolutionary dynamics; environmental variability |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Applied Mathematics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) EP/V014439/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Nov 2023 10:59 |
Last Modified: | 21 Jan 2025 14:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rsif.2023.0393 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:204859 |